


A Change in the Water

by rosekay



Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman, Supernatural
Genre: F/F, F/M, Genderswap, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season/Series 02, Stanford Era, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-20
Updated: 2007-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:17:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosekay/pseuds/rosekay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's left, but Dean finds him anyway. John is not a father for daughters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Change in the Water

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted to LJ in 2007. The American Gods element is of the blink-and-you'll-miss-it variety.

*

She dreams.

 _A bad place_ , says the thing, and then, _worship me. Worship me._

*

There’s a boneless white rush, and he wakes up to a familiar melange of smells, some sense memory so startlingly vivid that he freezes, shot. 

The rough scratch of his father's shirt cradles his cheek. There's sour sweat and something dark, masculine - he's not sure why he thinks that - in his nose. When he opens his eyes, he can feel arms around him, holding him up, a hot brand behind his shoulders and numbing the backs of his knees. He just wants to sleep, let go, but something's wrong. He hasn't been held like this in a long time, and he feels - 

"Dad?" 

His hand goes to his throat automatically, almost unbalancing the two of them. His voice is all wrong, vibrating oddly in his mouth, too high, too smooth, his chest tight and heavy. When he squints, Dean can see that the car's not so far away now, a little blurry, but dark and comforting when he looks. 

His father is cut from rock when he looks up, something he hasn't done for a long time. The familiar jaw stretches wide and strong, eyes dark, worried, smaller above them. He doesn't say anything, and Dean realizes with a shivery jolt that there's hardly any strain in his face, his arms at all, that his father's just holding him, cradling him, like he's nothing. He's almost dropped when he struggles, a crushing sense of vertigo and half panic, but they manage to stumble upright against each other, Dean's knees starting to buckle because he doesn't seem to remember how to stand, how to spread his legs right. His father's hand is tight and too wide against his back, supporting him, holding him up and pushing him away. 

Dean feels wrong, too light and too heavy all at once, his balance thrown, limbs like jelly. 

"Dad?" he says again, looking up, and the distance seems greater than it's ever been, his father towering above him. 

He touches his face with his hands, tentatively then more fiercely, running over familiar features. His throat, a frighteningly smooth curve, and then down, down where the heaviness is, the swell of - 

Breasts. Breasts. He can feel their weight on his palms, warm and smooth like he never expected to feel from this angle. Swallowing, not daring to look, his hand wanders down, to where his pants are swallowing him, the familiar weight and heft just gone, empty space and a sucking tenderness there instead. 

His father ducks his head, flushes a dull red, and it occurs to Dean that he's feeling himself up in front of his father. He fumbles, freezes, doesn't know what to do with his hands. 

"I'm gonna figure this out." 

The voice is low, reassuring, but his father won't look at him. 

 

*

 

They thought it was some sort of werewolf, even though the cycle was always off, but it wasn't. Something more primal, heavier, a female thing of incoherent rage and deep, secret curves. 

Dean fingers the bandage at his hip, where the bone swells sharp under his hand now, remembers the bite, more deep than tearing, and the heat that came afterward. He felt her anger for a second, when they were connected, flesh to flesh, and he's almost sorry they had to kill her. She felt lost, he knows that, stripped of her sacrifices and abandoned in a barren place. She was only looking for a little warmth. It’s not quite a memory, but he can see her long hands, tipped scarlet, on his cheeks, her generous flesh, a thing of the earth and moon. She never looked at the sky though, only him. 

"There shouldn't be any other side affects, but keep an eye out," Caleb tells them, and his father's mouth is tight. "Just wait out the cycle." 

He pats Dean's shoulder sort of awkwardly, standing to one side. There's thunder racking his father's face. 

A cycle, the lunar cycle. Which means, Jesus, a month. He's cradling his stomach again, unused to how his body seems to center there now, low and warm, how much smaller, looser, fiercer he feels. 

He senses relief from his father's silence, and anger there too.

"Caleb," that low voice even lower now. "Just…keep this between us, ok?"

Dean cuts his eyes to Caleb's shuttered face, watches the slight nod between them with a knot in his stomach. He feels ashamed for no reason, face hot. 

A month, he thinks. A month. I can do that. 

 

*

Normally Dean would appreciate the sight of a good looking girl in her boyfriend’s shirt and not much else, except the girl in the mirror looks more stunned than sexy, and the shirt is his. 

He runs a hand through his hair, fascinated that it doesn't really seem to have changed, still short, messy, shaggier than he usually keeps it only because they'd been too caught up on the latest job for haircuts – exactly as it was. His balance though, that's shifted to somewhere low in his gut. He watches the reflection draw a hand there at the tiny swell of his belly, the answering heaviness in his breasts, nipples brushing the scratchy material of his shirt. His hips are shot and awkward now, bone and fat tied in another curving slash that takes him down to the empty heat between his legs. 

"Jesus, Dean," says his father, running a hand through the scritch of stubble at his jaw. He's a darker shadow that looms suddenly in the glare of the dirty motel mirror. The sound of his voice cracks the spindled silence of his observation, and he clutches his shirt closed. There's no more instinct left in the way he moves, just this collection of bone and sway and pleasant heaviness.

His father stays away, almost flinches back when Dean stumbles forward, his own shirttails fluttering around his legs, his boxers too loose, extra material crumpled in one fist.

Dean falls back on the practicalities, because there doesn't seem to anything else to do. He's got a few IDs with gender neutral names – a Jordan, a River – concocted by Sam during his short lived pot smoking commune phase that had nearly given their father an ulcer.

He knows where to go, who to call, people who can replace the picture and tweak the gender, or hell, give him a brand new one, as easily as taking a piss in the morning. And with those places, those people, a pretty face, however it was acquired, might grease a lot of doors. 

And he is pretty, when he looks, his face just subtly more delicate – eyes a little wider, his jaw line less severe. It’s more shocking how he hasn’t really changed, not there at least, his face still, just a million tiny things that wrong, the details of it his own and his family’s. There's a nice body, maybe too muscular for Dean's usual tastes – he's glad not to have lost too much of his hard own strength - but soft too in the right flaces. 

He wants to touch the fluttering hollow of his own throat, slide a hand down the valley that the open shirt creates, skim the sharp slanting shadow of his hip before the loose elastic of boxers swallows it. He feels too touched, too open, buzzing under his skin as he stands in the dim motel room, staring at the coffee stains on the table and the messy angle of the mirror. 

"Chill out," he tells his father, who's started pacing now, always stopping a few feet in front of Dean like there's an invisible screen. Maybe the panic's coming later (a whole month, God), but now he just wants to touch. 

When he looks in the mirror again, smiling uncertainly, maybe there's someone else there

*

The sales assistant at the store looks at him like he might bite her, or maybe just keel over. When Dean passes himself in the mirror, he understands the tense expression on her face. He's dressed mostly in Sammy's old clothes that they dug up, from years and years ago, the only ones that fit. His father talks about forgetfulness and shoulda sold these, traded them years ago, but Dean remembers cleaning up the lonely pile of things that Sam had left behind two years ago, clothes he outgrew, a few old books, toys.

He packed them up in one of those giant college kid tupperwares neatly folded with military precision, stuffed it in the trunk, almost daring his father to act.

But John had done none of that. Once, Dean watched from the doorway of one of their safe houses, a decrepit cabin in the woods. There was dust everywhere, only bugs and lamplight to flicker against the silence they'd settled into. His father knelt in front of the box, hand not quite touching it, just stared until Dean's knees were sore from standing still so long. He hadn't wanted to move. 

Now he's in a pair of worn flip flops that are still too big, because Sam had always had feet the size of boats. He slipped into the smallest of his own beaters, loose around the waist, and straining around his chest, his nipples too prominent against the thin material. It makes him blush and hunch and twist ridiculously. Dean's not ready to flash the world. 

The sweatshirt is just embarrassing. Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers or something he doesn't like to contemplate too deeply, but it covers him up, comfortably threadbare at the elbows but warm and thick all the same, still smells a little like his brother if he tries. 

One hand holding up his rolled up boxers, he flashes a grin at her, toning it back a little when she smiles back, brittle. The bruise ripe on his temple and the smaller one at the corner of his mouth probably aren't helping his cause. 

"My luggage got mixed up at the airline," he starts, shrugging with an embarrassed smile. "Got stuck in my little brother's clothes." 

That's what does it, because she smiles back, suddenly a little motherly, not so bad herself, short and brunette. He eyes the way her breasts strain against her little uniform, making the name tag – Rose – pop, and the slender turn of her calves curving into cute little pumps that lengthen her legs. If he had the right equipment - 

"Well, our lingerie section is over there, Miss." 

Dean smiles, swallows, mouth suddenly a little dry. 

At least his father isn't here. 

*

The room's still empty when he gets back, so he strips and goes back to the mirror, less self conscious now, relishing the cool air moving under his arms, between his legs. 

He doesn't seem to have lost much muscle, brown and freckled and almost too lean, but his breasts look soft and touchable – firm, pert, a nice handful. The sharply cut abs are a little scary on a girl, but Dean's learned to appreciate the feel of hard muscle tensing as much as welcoming softness.

He sets his hands on the slant of his hips, the bones a little too prominent, then carefully fingers the rough hair between his legs, the soft flesh curling beneath it. Maybe he'll trim it, though he doesn't mind the natural - 

And oh. 

Oh. 

That's it, a sharp, hot feeling in his mouth, his breasts, his toes, all the way to his fingers, skinny and too long now, his old scars still there to comfort him.

He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, letting his hand wander further, one finger circling the harder flesh there, another drifting down in a slick slide, playing with the softness that he's touched, licked a million times. He's never done it and felt like this though, an amazing tightness low in his belly, sharp heat deep inside him, the cool air stirring sensitive parts. 

He has to breathe out slowly when he slides the first finger in, because he's tight, totally unsure if he's got the angle right. His nail scratches a little awkwardly, and he flinches, jerks, hunches over himself and breathes again, the other finger at his clit, little bursts of colors in his eyes. He thinks of the sales assistant, her raised eyebrows, plucked until she looked permanently startled, and that tight little ass, imagines her like this, thighs spread in front of a mirror, her hands between her legs, imagines licking, screwing her, maybe her fingers, those small hands he'd seen, inside him too, and oh God. 

Dean's bending, swaying, thighs damp and gleaming in the low light now, his fingers cold against his hip. He can feel it in his hair, the tips of his fingers, his toes, spreading too quickly, his whole body thrumming, shaking with it. He slowly straightens, looks at the slick bright line of his fingers, into the mirror at his mussed hair, his fucked out eyes, the swells of his own body. _Not mine._

Yeah, he thinks lazily, stupidly. I'd do me. For sure. 

The lock clinks behind him, door creaking open in a shaft of light. 

 

*

 

Dean barely manages to get the bathroom in time. He slams the door in his hurry, stubs a toe on the hard trunk of the toilet, and sort of ends up hunched awkwardly over the sink. His head's still spinning, thighs slick when he shudderingly runs a finger down the crease of his hip. A nipple brushes the cold porcelain and he has to bite off a moan, his skin strumming with unfed energy.

He can see in the mirror where pinpricks of sweat have broken out over his temples, feel the heat flush damp all over his body, his legs a little wobbly, and his center still throbbing with remembered heat. 

"Dean?" 

The voice is gruff, worried even through the door, and he has to laugh. Hiding in the bathroom like a twelve year old caught with his first dirty mag, hovering over sticky pages and skinny thighs. 

" _Dean!_ " 

A particular timber he's only heard on a job, unforeseeably low and rumbling, splintering through the cheap plywood. He can hear furniture, equipment getting shuffled around, a high key rhythm, more panicked than Dean's ever heard it. He's so surprised for a second that he doesn't even react, just straightens and stares beyond the door.

Another loud crash startles him into speech. 

"Dad, I'm in here!" 

His voice rings out light and wrong, another girl in another house, teasing her overprotective father. He cuts a look to the towel rack, the thin cheap stuff almost too rough against his over sensitized skin when runs his fingers run through it, crushed against his cheek.

He shakes it out, wraps it around himself carefully. Navigating how tightly the twists will hold over his breasts is an exercise itself, but finally, he manages to open the door. 

His father stands on tense feet in the middle of the room, his hands curled by his sides, head bowed. 

For a second, Dean is almost frightened, thinking absurdly of his bare feet, skinny ankles, the way his shoulders arch, the bruises on his face. The flush of almost discovery is gone now.

The room is cold, and his father is pale. 

"Dad, I was just, just going to take a shower." His voice rings out girlish, hollow. 

It hasn't been this awkward in a long time, this dance they do. He itches in his skin, rubbing one foot along his ankle, head canted down. 

His father looks him up and down, clinically, like a hunter, then with something that Dean can't quite decipher. He tries to imagine the picture he makes, a tallish girl with wide straight shoulders and generous, sharp cut curves, skin scattered with freckles, biting her lip, digging her toes into the cheap carpet. Wearing the towel exactly like a girl of years instead of a week. The blush is easy to feel, hot on his cheeks, and hard to push down. 

"Dean," says his father, like a sigh. Then there's a hand running across Dean's cheek, the backs of those knuckles raw, rough. 

Dean almost jumps he's so startled, and they're suddenly too close, something terrible and uncomfortably open in his father's dark eyes. It seems so unlike him and yet - 

He straightens his legs again for steadiness, tugs the towel tighter where the knot is starting to slip. Looks down quickly when his father opens his mouth, totally unsure. 

"Don't do that again, ok?" 

The familiar voice cracks unexpectedly, and Dean twitches up, sharp chin leading his glance. He feels uncomfortable in his own skin again, crackling on the balls of his feet, wondering why his father might care so much now, when he'd borne both Dean's, and Sammy's, noisier explorations, with the patience of a saint. 

"Jeez," he says instead, deliberately light, trying a smile in his new face – his mouth feels wrong. "I was just in the bathroom. Don't freak out, ok?" 

John’s expression is frozen, and Dean has to turn around. The door to the bathroom is a distant escape, yawning open dizzily in the hazy yellow light like it's a mile away rather than just a few feet. His father has never seemed so tall before, wide and dark against the ridiculous pastel decor of the room, nor so brittle, the lines oddly delicate in his face. 

He wonders if he looks anything like his mother, the thought comforting for a second, but then he remembers her picture again, his own fuzzy recollection of her, and thinks of the girl in the mirror. No, not so similar, maybe in the whiteness of the smile, the wide set eyes. But she's someone else, this heat between her legs, the heaviness in her step. 

She can feel his eyes itching beneath her shoulder blades all the way back to the bathroom, even sharper when she switches on the water. She stays in for too long, the lazy spray familiar, her gaze caught and fascinated by how it rolls between her breasts, down her legs. When she looks in the mirror again, her eyes are red rimmed from the water, lashes spiking around it. She looks astonishingly fresh, all freckles and smooth skin, a surprised expression in her wide eyes, the innocent curve of her collarbones, her hair mussed in a damp halo around her new face. The hot water brings out the bruises, vivid and obscene. 

"I'm going out," her father tells her, brusque, his hands stroking the barrel of a shotgun, almost back to his old self through the steam that rolls out. 

"The Kinney place?" 

She thought they were waiting until the next night, squirming in her new jeans, dark and tight, sloping to cradle her hip bones. 

"The local bar, do some recon." 

He still won't look at her, and Dean frowns, crosses her arms. 

"I'm coming with you." 

He doesn't need to say no, the tiny tightening of his lips is enough, but she's powerful now, hip shot and fresh from the shower, won't back down, no sir, no I won’t. 

 

* 

The bar's a dive, but its dark wood and low key atmosphere are familiar, comforting. Crooked neon signs at angles with the pockmarked spread of the bar, and no computer systems here, just paper slips, and a certain surliness in the way the music stutters along. He lounges in a corner, legs spread comfortably, arm slung over the back of the bench. One of the bartenders is older, beginnings of a beer belly, weathered good ol’ boy face. When he spits and cleans, his shoulders roll, hands big and cracked around a messy glass.

The other one is a hot little thing, bad dye job arranged in a cute, messy short cut, small breasted with a high firm ass that moves nicely in her jeans when she turns and bends to refill. When she catches his eye, he leers appreciatively on instinct, forcing the ease now in his new body. She takes it like a pro, with a wink and an offer of a drink from across the room. He raises his own glass in a salute, makes sure he really wraps his lips around the rim. It burns going down, a warm flush in his throat and stomach, and a sudden unfamiliar lightheadedness. 

But then he can see her moving his way, thinking with a pleased warmth in his chest, Still got it. The voice in his head sounds like his own, deeper, fondly scratchy. 

She sets the drink down with a wet clink, something smooth and dark, girly looking.

"Hey, sweetheart." 

His old smirk feels too small for this face, but it comes easily, the brittle fit all the more disappointing because of that. 

The bartender smiles at him. Up close, she's got a little ink that winds around the delicate curve of her collarbone, unusual place, must have hurt like a bitch. Dean can taste the sweat and salt on his tongue just looking at it. A stud gleams silver in the light when she turns her head, eyes a little too wide, but a wicked, wicked mouth that glows at him. The full smirk seems half indulgent as she jerks her head. 

"From him." 

She winks again, and Dean swears under his breath, cocktease, even though it's technically not accurate anymore. He keeps his smile intact as he cranes his head around to his benefactor. 

The guy at the table's tall and lanky with a blinding grin. He waves, a little awkward, short, stuttering movements of his hand, attuned to Dean’s every twitch and the direction of his gaze. He’s hunched forward like he's not quite sure of himself, hair half in his face, but apparently balls enough to raise the flag. Dean looks down at his drink quickly, feeling stupid. He sits up a little straighter, crosses his legs, a flush on his face. He's not some idiot teenage girl, but this, this is - 

He remembers screwing himself on his own fingers, the sharp hot feel of it, flooding to his extremities and back. Imagines the stretch and slide with a cock, straining, moaning - familiar, but from the other end. His toes curl a little inside his new shoes, and he has to tighten his fingers on the glass, but then it's too late. The guy's already seated across from him, smiling again. They bounce smiles back and forth, his fingers cold and stiff, thighs tight from how he's crossing his legs so deliberately. 

Then -

"What's your name?" 

Dean freezes for a second, but catches the slip with a smile. He hasn't really thought that far. His current fake says "River," but he can't imagine using it for any real length of time without giving it all away.

Deanna's too obvious, too close for him. Dinah too biblical. He thinks of the mirror, the fresh faced freckles, wants a normal girl's name with an urge that makes his head spin.

Amber. 

Yeah, if he wants to be a stripper.

Jen. Every other ex-girlfriend and his grandmother's dog, plus the postal worker she mauled. 

Liz. Dana. Sarah. Rose. 

He scrolls through them quickly, tries to imagine he's on the spot in front of the police, his smile opaque, obnoxious only to provide a distraction from everything else. Now the guy's looking at him a little quizzically, so he just ducks his head like he's seen girls do, looks up a little through his lashes. It's dizzying, a sweet little rush. His calculations fly out of his mouth useless, as he spits something out with eyes lowered and a smile flitting around his lips. 

"Jess, I'm Jess." 

 

*

His name is Tom, and he's about to graduate from the local college, thinking about journalism, writing mostly. He likes words, shaping them, wants to go to school for it in New York. He hunches forward in what looks like an old habit, sliding on his white, blinking smile.

Dean recognizes some kind of tactic for sure, but can't help but be a little charmed. 

Tom took Italian – some fancy liberal arts place then - played around with theater in high school, but was better at track. He's trying to get a job as a cub reporter at the local paper, but he's not sure if he's got the killer instinct. He prefers beer to wine, Jack to Jim. Dean used to make fun of the shy and sweet types. He thinks of himself as a more straightforward guy, a hey honey, what's shaking, smile straight and true sort of approach. None of this side swiping bull shit.

But now he backs up a little. He's always known the suggestiveness of touching a woman's hands, where and how to run fingers, smile and pause at the right points, reading her reactions by a quickening of breath, eyes ducking to the side, a hand to her hair. With all that, he's pretty sure he never nailed the technique like Tom is doing.

It was subtle, the creeping forward, getting Dean to laugh a little first, relaxing him. The first soft stroke of a finger tip along the palm was almost absent minded, entirely natural, and the more purposeful circling of his knuckles has him crossing his legs, leaning forward, a half flush in his cheeks. It's almost humiliating if he thinks too hard – he's trying not to, but he has to give respect where it's due, take some notes, sit back and admire the apparent unguarded sincerity with which Tom does everything, so awkward it has to be planned.

But Dean's never quite sure, always caught off guard. A smooth touch here and a stilted chuckle here. Tom sits with the uneasiness of someone new to his bulk. Dean imagines him as a chubby, little kid, adds some headgear and a snort for fun. He’s unreasonably charmed by the mental picture. 

Tom takes his hand again, folds it in his own. Dean’s surprised when he realizes that he doesn't really mind. Tom's careful, doesn't pry too much when Dean clamps up, just fills in the awkward gaps with more stories about his own life. He buys all the drinks, sits more comfortably now in his chair, watching Dean with a warmth that seems unreal. 

"You're beautiful, you know." 

Dean knows this too, inserting these little lines in the middle of conversations, as if they were so spontaneous, so unable to be helped. But with Tom, he's half convinced. With Tom, he's, embarrassingly enough, almost blushing. He forgets about the ache of the bruises, the wait for the cycle, the weirdness and tenderness of his new breasts, new curves. Tom leans forward, his other hand moving toward Dean's face, his cheek, eyes half lidded, his sweet smile still going strong. 

Dean leans into it almost without meaning to, wants to feel the large, smooth palm swallow his cheek, support it. There's an excited flutter, a heat, low in his belly, different and more slow burning than he's used to, but no less urgent. 

The kiss is a promise, something Dean himself might have tried – gentle at first, but coming out strong. It's Dean that fumbles, not sure where to go, all his usual cues taking in the wrong direction, but Tom saves it, takes control, and Dean finds he likes the slow, stroking play of lips, a slip of the tongue almost delayed but deep enough when called, the weirdness of not quite being in control, having to angle his head down, falling into the big hands. He fights it at first, moving on instinct, but Tom takes him slow, and he's ready for that. 

He's in some sort of haze when he comes out of it, lips wet and hands cold, probably a stupid smile playing across his features. His whole body seems to focus on the emptiness between his legs and the tingling of his lips. The slow curling smile that suddenly has an edge that has Dean tensed happily for more, squirming in his seat.

His peripheral vision's shot, and he doesn't even notice the presence behind him until he's already half yanked out of his chair, a familiar hand closed on his wrist. 

Tom's face clues him in faster than anything else - shock, guilt and maybe a little anger. 

"What do you think you're doing?"

Dean's not sure where his father's gut punch growl's directed, but he has to fight the urge to groan, dangling uncomfortably beneath the tight skeletal grip of angry fingers, his skin blooming a bloodless white. 

"What the fuck?" 

His voice arches up high, stronger than he meant, and now the bar's patrons are all turning toward them. Tom stands up and up, and Jesus, Dean didn't realize how tall he was sitting down. He moves like an athlete now, blocky and quick across the length of the table, so he's as close as he can get between Dean and his father. He glares, but cuts his gaze back to Dean at the last second. 

"Jess, is there a problem?" 

Dean feels prickly, hot, knows the cute bartender, hell everyone, is watching now. The look that comes over his father's face is thunderous, reminiscent of a thousand hunts and bad days. He feels the fingers twitch hard over the bones of his wrist, sees the stubbled jaw jump as John nearly steps forward. He looks at Tom, pleading, or something near it, the initial outrage gone out of him. 

"No, nothing. Everything's fine, all right." 

"Jess?" 

He barely stops the wince as the name is repeated, can imagine what his father's mind holds now. Tom looks less than convinced, his dark hair still falling boyishly across his brows, suddenly too young for all his anger, _because_ of all his anger. Dean doesn't want to see what his father could do this boy and his smooth hands, doesn't want to see the way that face must be tightening, folding at his response to a girl's name. 

But Tom will not stand down, flushed now with John's momentary pause. He holds out a hand for Dean to take, innocent. 

"Jess, who is this?" 

My father – it's on the tip of his tongue, but he can't quite get it out. John looks at him sharply, and for a wild second, feeling the hand clench around his wrist, he's sure his father's going to deck him. It's ridiculous, because they'd hardly been beaten as boys, even when they might have deserved it. But his heart jumps a little all the same, and he backs away almost absent mindedly, jerked still by the iron holding him there. The bar is dark, low lit, a hum of conversation still going, but he can feel the focus on them, snatches of words distracted and drinks no longer poured.

He fights the urge to tug at the hem of his shirt – it's too hot in here, and he's too small, too big for this, held awkwardly and head spinning. It's the twitch of Tom's open face that alerts him to another factor. He saw the bartender chatting with a cop earlier – not unusual in this kind of bar and this kind of place, but the guy disappeared, and Dean didn't think any more of it. 

Except now the uniform's back, face like closed steel, an older type, graying hair, muscle still in his arms and back. He gives John the kind of look with which he might grace dirt under his heel. 

"Sir, what seems to be the problem here?"

Rote lines and rote attitude. Dean was always convinced cops watched TV too, picked up the better phrases and the worse ones. Then he's staring at Dean, and Dean straightens nervously, first instinct afraid that their IDs have been found out, his mind already spinning with a smile and a story. 

His father looks down, takes a breath, and Dean knows he's reining it in. When his voice emerges, it's scratchy, frightening. 

"This is my," another breath, a half wild look that everyone seems to notice, " - my _daughter_ \- "

Tom looks perplexed, the cop already starting to cut in.

"Your daughter huh? You tell me, Mr. – "

"Plant," John supplies with gritted teeth.

" – you treat your girl all right?"

Dean's cold when he realizes what this is all about. The damn cop's staring at his _bruises._ He tries to imagine the situation, big man like his father, half bearded, dangerous looking, dragging a girl out of her seat. He’s seen the things himself, blooming dark across his face, only now yellowing around the edges. It must look – 

"Doesn't look too good to me," says the cop, and he's eyeing John narrowly now.

He looks like a tough old bastard, but there's belly hanging over his belt and gun clip too, softness in the weathered face. Dean imagines he's got a little girl at home, younger than him, who maybe yelled at her daddy for cleaning his shotguns when her first boyfriend came to pick her up – he seems the type. The guy's probably taking some down time before a late shift, anxious to get home, check on the daughter, brush her hair back from his face, a kiss for his wife waiting in that tightly held mouth. Now he looks at Dean, face freckled and wide open, head down with a skinny arm caught in her father's grip.

Probably a nice guy, and exactly what they don't need right now. 

Tom's stepped back, mouth open, eyes cutting to Dean's pleadingly, but Dean can't look at him, only his father, who's started on a slow, dark burn that raises his hackles. 

"Don't you – "

"He treats me fine." 

Now everyone's drawn to Dean again, who straightens his shoulders, shakes his wrist from his father's grip with a glare, a trust-me. 

"He's just a little over protective is all." Now he smiles, knows how to curl it, soften it just so, lifts one hand to his swollen cheek. "Got this from my last boyfriend. Dad just doesn't want me to get all mixed up again."

The lie comes as easily as all the ones before it. It's strange how this feels no different than playing the student, the officer, the maintenance worker. Same rhythm, same slide of the tongue. He looks right at the cop, rueful sweetened as much as he can manage, all embarrassed and see, my daddy's just like you, nothing to worry about, nothing to see. 

Tom looks pinched, ike he just got a punch to the gut, but the cop relaxes visibly, and so does the rest of the bar, convinced enough that they return to their normal buzz. 

Dean stands back, rubs his wrist, too cowardly to risk another look at him.

His father’s hand is hot and heavy on his back as they leave the bar.

*

" _Goddamit_ , Dean." 

John’s voice has never thundered quite so deep, nothing to counter it now. It shakes Dean's bones. He falls like a rag doll against the wall when his father drags him, his strength too much now, not enough weight to counter it. He leans, hands curled at his sides, chin dipped. 

"You – "

His father can't even get the words out, just messes up his nest of hair even more with tired, old hands, paces a little, arms astray, jacket widening his shoulders. Dean has to swallow, sinks into the cheap wall paper behind him, his back curving uncomfortably. 

"What?"

His voice surprises him with his steadiness. His father looks at him like the question's the most idiotic thing he's heard out of Dean yet, eye brows jacked up, deep lines in his face. 

"What? _What?_ We're on a _job_ , Dean, and you’re,” Christ, he can’t even get the word out. Dean waits, head turned to the side.

“It’s damn unnatural is what it is,” his father mutters. 

Dean pushes himself away from the wall, narrows his eyes.

"That what's getting to you, old man? That he's got a cock?"

He takes pleasure in his father's flinch. 

"Well guess what? I've got a _rack_." He hold his hand low on his belly. "I can have _kids_ in this body." 

It frightens him, more than John could understand. He wonders if girls feel that wonder all the time, that another _person_ could grow in there. And Tom was, well, he was – Dean wonders if some Stone Aged version of him might have thought, good provider, strong legs, grab me by the hair, please. The thought is ridiculous, springing from somewhere he can’t place, but his voice is low, bringing through his chest, soaring out to cut his father’s bluster. 

"Dean, you're not – "

"Not what, a real fucking girl? You think I don't _know_ that? It's just – "

He swipes at his face helplessly, looks up, eyes open, the strength suddenly sapped from him because this is his _father_ , the two of them trapped in this hellish merry go round that shouldn’t even be happening. This isn't them, had never been them. They are bowed heads and silent communication, soldiers together. Their time is the comfortable quiet of the early, early morning, not this brash, open argument, TV words and thrown phrases.

"I always brought home girls before. You never cared, long as I stayed focused."

His voice is sullen, the Sam voice, Dean used to call it. 

"Dean," and his father looks helpless now too, just moves closer, neck too strong, body too big. "Dean, this isn't right." 

He brings one hand up, awkward, drags it across Dean's cheek. It's too intimate for the two of them, something they'd never done as men. Dean wonders what it is about this body that invites touch, such odd and aching gentleness. 

He laughs low in his belly. "Right? Are you serious? Why do you care?”

It’s colder than he means it. His father's fist tightens, forms right next to his eye, and he jerks back involuntarily. 

"You can't – this isn't – "

But Dean won't stop now, feels his new center, low and steady, draws himself up, sees the gentle crumble in his father's eyes when he does it. 

"Can't what? Be fucked?” 

There's excitement now, tired by the new weight, the new balance, bewildered at this sudden scrutiny from his father.

She's dizzy and riding, the words flying out alien, weaving the air between them. The face in front of her darkens instantly, that fist working dangerously close to his cheek. 

"Dean, you can stop being an idiot or I'll – "

Who is he to threaten her?

"You'll what?"

Fearless now, running high on the pitch of her voice, the tight sway of her shoulders. 

"Lock me in my room? Watch for boys throwing rocks at my window? Don’t be ridiculous.”

Who is this man to stop her? 

"Don't you talk back to me like that, Dean. "

_I raised you better than that._

It shuts him up cold, and he can hear it curl out from beneath the words, can't keep the disgust from the back of his throat. He scoffs, part of him horrified, watching what he says from a careful distance. He thinks of Sam, eyes closed in, mouth running off when he should have stopped long ago.

What he remembers is the weariness of pulling them apart, always too alike, butting heads at every opportunity. Hunts interrupted, meals ruined, doors slammed, and Dean left alone in the room to clean up the dishes on the floor and seal up the food. He'd watched Sam grow until he stood nose to nose with their father, so much fire in his eyes it seemed the lankiness just grew out of having everything burned out of him. They said awful things to each, tired and hurt the both of them. Dean never had that much trouble with his father, knew how to handle him, listen to him. It seemed so _easy_ to him, just let the old man ride out his tempers, he'd told Sam, just keep your head down until it's over.

John wasn't always reasonable in the heat of the moment, eyes gleaming narrow like Sam's, but he was never unfair. Sam never seemed to see that, always bent on whatever wandered through his eyes, the corners of his mouth from time to time, something neither Dean nor John quite understood.

Dean tried to piece out for years exactly what Sam did that would have their father just explode, tried to see the signal before it came, defuse their fights.

He thinks he figures it out now though, how to twist his hips forward, angle his face so the bruises gleam in the light. 

"You never cared before. It's only a month. It doesn't matter what I do." 

Maybe that she-creature bit some Sam into him, because he sees the urgency now, the flying need to speak and be heard. Can't keep your head down now, Dean.

"You're damn well right it matters." The voice is too close, stringing through his ear like rocks ground into his bones, familiar and alien all at once, too deep, too much. He can smell his father, dark and musky in the room. It overpowers him and fuels whatever's gotten him this far. 

His father leans close, but he's tense, afraid. Dean is not. 

"It drives you crazy doesn't it?" The part of him that recoils at his own audacity is a small and separate thing now.

Inside he's crowing with joy, relishing this new freedom. Angry and letting that fire eat him up too. The words come before he even hears them in his head, tailored to strike and rip painfully. He wonders if Sam felt this exhilaration, breaking out from years of yes sir, no sir, and watching that old expression crack.

He says the words without even hearing them, no idea in his head where they come from. 

"That kid was huge wasn't he? You think about his hands on me, Dad? Fucking your little girl wide open until she – " 

He's expecting the hit, but still doesn't quite roll with it enough, his cheek cracking dangerously and the world spinning before he's smelling the layer of scents ground into the carpet, eyes squinting, mouth and cheek, that whole side of his face feeling bruised and ripe, a fruit's skin ready to split because his father's dug a thick finger in too far, gouging the flesh, held there by the open wound. 

There's that hand at his wrist again, hauling him off the ground, and his father looks terrible, brittle when he cares to see, but he's too high now for sympathy, flying with this, drags a smile out of his ripe girl mouth, shifts his hip, back straightening. 

He casts his voice low, angry, thinking of Sam. 

"I'm still your _son_ , goddamit."

His father's eyes are wild, darting, and Dean wonders, breath coming hard, if he's going to get hit again, if this will come to a fight. He's got no chance in this body. It's only a moment of terror, but it unstrings him in a way the hunt has never done. Then the heat of the dark gaze cuts away, his father hunching, cracking as he turns. And Dean wants to grab him, grab his face, force him back. 

_Look at me, you fucker. Just look at me._

He's suddenly angry enough to cry, outraged and feeling it in all the tender places of his body, held there by his father's dismissal as surely as if his wrists were caged again. He wonders if this is what Sam felt like, the fire burnt out into an empty space in his middle, the rash words no comfort now that they've already flown, tossed into a corner, smarting. There's no brother to lick his wounds though.

He's on his own. 

*

She dreams of a white tower that gleams in the distance. She can see it clearly even though she's standing inside of it. 

There's golden dust that swells inside her and the bells of her father's voice.

* 

It's half past sunrise, and the waitress looks worse off than Dean feels. 

He couldn't sleep, every part of his body suddenly wrong – too heavy, too thin, too smooth. The sheets scratched; his father's breathing whistled in his ears like thunder, the drip of an old faucet, faint thumps he didn't care to think too much about from the room next door. Even swallowing felt like too conscious a labor, his mind insisting on cataloguing every swell of his tongue, the slide of saliva. It was too little and too much, the thousand little things he ignored every day calling out like sirens.

The sky flushes bright behind him as he stirs his coffee. It's already lukewarm, but his waitress is flipping through a dog eared magazine instead of looking his way. He's glad she seems a few notches too cynical to comment on the bruises or how fragile he looks or any other disgusting revelation that's been shoved down his throat lately. He viciously stabs the remains of his eggs – maybe if he just swallows it, gets fucking pigtails and a dress to match – and hopes to God that's the caffeine talking.

He's still hollowed out, almost ordering for two on instinct, not even sure if he's thinking of his father or Sam. 

The bell over the door tinkles faintly as someone steps in. The sound of heavy boots scuffing wires every nerve, familiar smell, familiar breathing, same rhythm of step-step-pound he's been hearing his whole life.

He doesn't have to look up to hate his father.

"Dean."

The plastic's worn down on the table, grooves and marks from a thousand tired people before him – obnoxious teenagers, some donut cop working off the last of his beat, that waitress taking a precious break. He's learned how to read things left behind.

"Son."

The waitress finally stops by to refill his cup. She's young, dark-haired, moves like she's listening to music, oblivious, even though there's nothing in her ears. The pause that's swallowing him doesn't phase her at all. She just moves on to the next table as he takes a sip – it's shit, bitter and black, grounds on his tongue, but it sharpens him even as it sours his belly, softens the silence that's stretching high between them.

He counts his father's breaths, hears them quicken then slow down, not naturally, but because his old man's trying to contain himself. Everywhere he looks, there's the shadow of a sleeve, flash off his mother's ring. The stifling air of the diner does nothing to hide the familiar scent, musk and dirt and cheap soap – like him, maybe not so much anymore. 

There's a quick breath before the explosion, so he's tensed for it, hand burning against the too hot curve of the cup. 

"Jesus, Dean, feel like I'm dealing with a real girl, will you just – "

The cup clatters when he sets it back on the saucer, coffee slopping over the edge to burn his hand, but he doesn't care, that wild energy yawning through him again. How did Sam do this? Get so angry it felt like his marrow was being strained out of him, rage again and again until maybe he wasn't quite there anymore, his head already in California.

He hears his father slide out of the seat behind him, but he's already halfway to the door, moving so quickly he nearly slams into a ruddy-faced giant with a baseball cap coming in. His father's hand's clamped around one wrist, but he doesn't care, just raises an eyebrow at Baseball Cap to let him through.

A grumble of "Is he bothering you, Miss?" and Dean's suddenly so angry it cuts clear through his careful process of tuning out his father, a cold and shocking swipe that sets every nerve on edge. He can’t begin to tell where it’s directed. The denials trail unsaid down his chin as he turns, finally looks at his father, who bristles, impossibly weary but ready to fight.

"Yeah, yeah, he is."

Baseball Cap's eyebrows go up at the force of his admission, and he feels his father's hand tighten on his wrist, a growl building up behind him.

"In fact, he beats me and rapes me every night too." He rips his wrist out of the suddenly slackened grip and slams the door open. "Have fun."

He can feel the diners' eyes on him, even the dopey waitress, but at this point he doesn't care, just stocks out the door, glad to have the mess at his back for once.

*

A vague sense of stupidity and the familiar emptiness have settled in by the time he sees the motel, cheeks less flushed and shivering for a jacket. He jacks up the heating once he gets inside, but the radiator gives only a plaintive whine before trying to rattle itself to life. His eyes take in the scattered clothes, bag spilled open uncharacteristically. His father had left in a hurry. He's not sure whether to call what's coursing through him wicked satisfaction or regret.

The old man even left his cell phone abandoned on the dresser. 

Dean picks it up, hits _voicemail_ when he sees the blinking message. The crackling voice is familiar, a wash of hot summers and rifle training, bandaging up Sam's stupid little boy scrapes.

"It's Joshua. Listen, I hate to do this to you, but I been tracking this werewolf for a couple weeks now, and the bastard's right near where you're pulling the Kinney job. Been after it for awhile, John, know its pattern – eating girls right outta their homes, and tonight's the moon. I'm coming, but this thing's fast – be nice to have some back up." 

More background information on the thing's movements and a text message with a string of coordinates.

Maybe Sam had to go across the country, but Dean has never needed more than a little blood to calm his nerves. He's glad for it, his body already wired at the thought. 

*

He can see the whisper of the full moon by late afternoon, only wavering out of sight during the wash of sunset, and burnt back into his sight by the time he reaches the wooded suburbia at the edge of town. He wears one of his old jackets because he didn’t find one for his new size while shopping. It’s the smallest he could scrounge up, a practical deep tan painted red by the street lamps.

There’s a small worry niggling in the back of his head that the size of it might hinder his movements, but the sleeves roll easily enough, and he makes sure to tighten them so his forearms are bare. 

It's not hard to find, because it finds Dean.

Joshua hadn't been lying. It's a snarling, huge gray mass, but it's fast, cutting through the air with more speed than its weight should allow. Dean barely gets the rifle up in time to block its first lunge. The force of the leap brings both of them crashing to the gravel, tiny grains ground into the back of his neck and his lower back where his shirt rode up.

His head bounces harshly, a brief terrifying second of blackout that sends sparks through his eyes, and the deep shock of breathless pain all over, but he's more concerned with the snapping jaws inches from his face, claws driving gouges into the barrel. 

He curses – it's a rookie mistake, assuming it'd be tailing one of the isolated houses like in Joshua's report when there was prey wandering right into its territory. But there's never any time for hesitation. Ducking a snap that's almost too close, he manages to get his legs up in a kick, levering it over his head with its own momentum. He overestimates his reach – instinct calculating an extra five inches that he no longer has, and the twisting weight of it wrenches one of his knees, but he gamely rolls with the follow through, scrabbling to his feet, one hand hovering over his knife. 

Only an idiot willingly gets into a close quarter fight with a werewolf for obvious reasons, so he rams the butt of the rifle into its face and takes off, ignoring the twinge in his leg. He cocks and fires close range, discharging and reloading even as the recoil hits him startlingly hard.

The wolf moves too quickly, its eyes gleaming brightly at him – dark and intelligent – and the shot only clips its shoulder. Dean dives again before it can corner him, but it's close, nipping at his falling form. He feels the awful tension of his claws holding him back, but it only manages to rip half his too large sleeve, cloth cutting his forearm and the sound a screech in his ears.

He's feeling his bruises now, the older ones from the initial fight with the creature, the knot courtesy of his father from the day before. His knee doesn't feel like anything important tore, but it's slowing him down, something he can't afford with this bastard. He almost fumbles the next reload, fingers greasing over the bullet, and the wolf's practically digging into the barrel by the time he squeezes off the shot, but it goes straight through the left side of its chest, acrid blood spraying Dean in the face, hot and sour.

Rearing back, it whines high and terrible, a pure animal sound that has his joints aching with low screech of agony cutting beneath it. He twitches up when lights start coming on in the neighborhood, knowing he has to wrap this up quickly.

The wolf presents itself in one last stumbling lunge, and Dean meets it with his blade, sweet, just cleaned and wickedly serrated. He manages to jam the gun into its maw, trapping its head with one arm and bringing the knife in one quick jab. The blade goes in clean, clearing the flesh like rotten fruit. He doesn't stop when it skitters off the unnatural ribs, keeps driving until the thing's twitching upright against him, his hand wrapped around the hilt, flush against its warm belly, dark blood soaking his entire front.

Dean finally breathes - the raw wolf scent, a streaking wild undercurrent almost overriding the flavor of rotting meat and coppery saliva. He can almost taste its blood, bitter and black, it's so strong the air. But no one seems to be coming out of the houses, and he can feel its pulse slow against him, sure of his own strength.

No sign of Joshua in the sudden quiet of the night and – 

The last sudden snap takes him off guard, the wolf digging the knife deeper into itself to get at his arm around the muzzle of the shotgun. Startled, Dean tumbles back, the weight of the thing more than its flagging strength bringing him to the ground, but his body's tired and bruised already, recovering more slowly this time from the shock.

It writhes, an animal in its final desperation, howling for its own blood back, all adrenaline, teeth hovering near her throat, and she almost screams, trying to scrabbling away from its weight in fear. She can feel the crush of its fur and knotted flesh pressing into the ground, the thrill of terror with her legs trapped, neck bent back, and shoulder shoved roughly into the ground, her flesh raw from the scraping.

Only one arm free to move at all. One arm.

It smells like a male, musk and wolf and meat, trapped like her in a dead land, and she thinks she scents the forests of its past in its blood, dark heads bowed before it, slivers of organs offered into its jaws.

 _Little girl_ , it seems to howl, already dying. _Red coat, red blood, there was red once._

It’s a moment of sudden pity, sharp and sour, that almost costs her.

It lunges, the blood flowing quickly now, soaking her more thoroughly.

She burns, but she knows to move, to draw out the knife and drive it back in through the soft fur of its throat.

Another terrible howl sunk into a gurgle as she digs in mercilessly, throw its soft flesh into the flake of spine she must be rending.

Again. Again.

And again. 

Her arm is numb but she can't stop until it's off her, the merciless weight.

He breathes – into blank, dead eyes, its rank breath dampening his face.

There's blood, a lot of blood, going cold now, soaking his front until his shirt clings to his breasts, his stomach, one sleeve gone, flesh scraped everywhere from the struggle.

The coat is ruined, the cast of the streetlights no longer an illusion but a carmine mess that’s rank and stiffening as the seconds go by. 

"Fuck, fuck," he struggles out from under it, pushing at the mass of dead fur, already hardening. 

His gun's only a few feet away, damaged but still workable. And the knife, buried in the thing. He gags because the smell of blood is so strong, all over him. More smears on the back of his other hand when he wipes his face. It stings his eyes and the little wounds all over him, but no cuts, not a bite nor scrape from the wolf. 

Lucky. He's fucking lucky.

He's still trying to extricate the knife from its torso when he hears the truck, throws a hand to his face to shield his blood stung eyes from its high beams. A dizzy stumble back and then he sees that the doors are open, two men stalking towards him.

Joshua, still the same after almost six years, grizzled beyond his age, but healthy looking, whip lean and grim. And his father.

Who looks shocked, ready to drop the gun in his hands, his dark eyes flickering from the dead wolf to Dean, covered head to foot with its blood, stiffening in his hair, darkening all over his clothing. It’s slick, a cold, sticky sheen of fear instead of the hot scent of its spray. His heart hasn't slowed down since the fight, still fluttering in his ribcage like a wild bird trying to beat itself out, the unsteady thrush of its bruised wings almost drowning out everything else.

"Dean," says his father. There's something else, but the _thumpthumpthump_ of his heart carries him forward, stumbling a little.

Joshua mutters something he doesn't quite hear, his vision sliding dangerously. He can't find his center, his balance, even the knife suddenly heavy in his hands.

"Dad," he tries. _thumpthump._

Then his father's almost upon him, and he just closes his eyes.

*

She dreams of a garden and fountain, sparkling so finely the water seems to fly like light through the air.

The garden is fruitful, everything ripe and red for her to take.

And the fountain too, pulsing with blood.

* 

Joshua is already gone when he wakes up, leaving only some extra medical supplies.

"What did you tell him?" he asks his father when he's able to sit up in the bed.

"To keep things quiet." He's working on the shotgun that Dean fucked up, oiling its barrel, smoothing the grooves dug into the grip. He doesn't look up.

"Are you ashamed of me?"

A few weeks ago, the words never would have made it past his head, but now that he's started, he can't seem to shut up.

_Just keep your head down, Sam._

The hypocrisy tastes bitter going down.

His father stops his work with the gun, but Dean can see his knuckles turn white. The silence that descends has him sweating under the sheets. He feels clean, no traces of blood on him except for a few dark scrapings under his finger nails. He's dressed in some of Sam's old sweat pants – no bra, and, when he looks, no panties either. Whatever he'd been wearing that day was probably blood soaked and ruined for good.

He flushes hotly to the tips of his ears when he considers who might have changed him. No way his father had let Joshua anywhere near him when he was unclothed, which left John himself. Growing up, he'd seen Sam and his dad in pretty much every possible state of dress and undress. Between hurried departures, early mornings, and dressing wounds, he knows more about their bodies, strengths, flaws and everything else, than most people's doctors. He’s more than used to the grunts and unspoken agreements of early morning, no one looking or caring. 

It’s never been a source of embarrassment before, just three guys getting along. Cramped motel rooms and living in the car though, coupled with two teenage boys, made sure for awkward moments over the years. He feels stupid for worrying over it now, but remembering what he'd seen in the mirror – soft breasts and his own, wide-eyed face, long legs and freckles everywhere, he's panicking a little at the thought of his father having to handle it. His flush gets worse when he remembers exactly what he'd been _doing_ in front of the mirror, and he’s suddenly, unforeseeably possessive, holding every memory of it to himself as if John had stolen it away. 

It's like going through fucking puberty all over again – he hasn't felt this aware of his own body for years, and now there's been no time to familiarize himself with any of it. He can't even say it feels like he's wearing a stranger's skin, because no matter how alien everything looks and feels, it's all _his_ , a denial his own flesh refuses him.

"Dean."

His father's voice is quieter than he's heard it for a long time. It's Sammy almost got in the way of that revenant, Dean himself trying to hold his guts in after a run in with a Japanese ghoul, John realizing his youngest son was gone for good. He looks down at his hands, peppered with tiny cuts and bruises that'll sting for a few days before fading. He's sore all over, and his head feels raw in the back, but he's mostly unharmed.

"Dean," then there's a hand over his own, brown and large enough to swallow his fingers, "Jesus, I thought that blood was yours."

When he looks up into John's face, he almost flinches away at how naked it looks. That expression is reserved for lives in danger, maybe his mother's birthday, Sammy's not so idle threats. They had an agreement between them, between men, where Dean knew his father's love and his worry, didn't need to see it all laid out and messy. It saved time, awkward conversations – they didn't need it.

Except now they do, and he'd rather be almost anywhere besides this room.

The hand tightens, another one coming to cup his jaw, turn his face toward John's haggard one. It's not so steady, brushing lightly over the bruise of its own making.

"I'm sorry, Dean. This whole thing, it's just - just throwing me off, ok?"

His father's voice has rarely been this gentle. Dean feels tense at the sound of it. 

"Dean, you gotta tell me what the hell you were thinking going after that thing alone."

He doesn't want to talk, his tongue thick, mouth dry, but he forces the words out, just to get this over with.

"I needed to let out a little steam, ok? It was stupid, I know."

"You're damn right it was stupid."

More familiar territory, the officer dressing down a jarhead. He straightens instinctively, but instead of a firm instruction and extra prep work for the next hunt, he gets his father leaning forward, both hands enveloping Dean's now.

"How many times did you stab that thing?"

"I – "

He tries to think, remembers the moment of terror, falling down, its weight crushing him into the gravel, blood already soaking him. Then – 

Only a haze of fear and an acrid taste in his mouth. His right arm is sore, bruised around the wrist and the side – multiple impacts. He didn’t even think to look at the body before passing out, so he has no idea what the actual number is.

"I'm not sure," he admits, surprised.

"Dean," his father sounds deadly serious. "You gotta tell me what you remember."

He looks down, trying to picture it.

"I was – " _scared_ "I just panicked a little, might have overdone a few things. Bastard jumped me, Dad."

"Joshua and I found twelve stab wounds in the thing, Dean. You remember that?"

He swallows, hands suddenly cold. Something flickers across his father's face, and he knows he isn't little anymore, that he can't just say he was scared. John doesn't trust him, and he's alone in this.

"I panicked."

It sounds small and silly even to his own ears.

The downturn of the brow. Disappointment, Dean knows that. Then his hand is free, and his father's back is to him, broad and tense, hands on his hips, head bowed.

"Dean, I need – "

"It's only a month, Dad. Caleb said no side affects."

He can't quite keep the apprehension out of his voice.

"Ok," says his father, and Dean sees his arm go up, a hand scrubbing over the unseen face. "Ok. I'll – yeah." He turns around and his face is dark. "There's takeout on the table."

Then he's out the door.

Dean has to swallow hard, something dangerously like tears welling up, but he's never been one for crying, and he certainly isn't going to start now. Getting out of the bed isn't easy, but far from impossible. He's sore from the tangle, maybe a few muscles pulled, but it's mostly surface stuff. When he checks his watch, he realizes it's been, Jesus, almost a day since he was out. His head is pounding, an egg forming under the bandage right beneath his hairline, so he digs around in the medical bag for pills.

Bruises all around, especially around his arms from handling the gun and knife. He remembers wrenching his knee, but it feels much better, only a little swollen when he scrunches up his pants. There are light scrapes all over the back of his body, from the thin skin around his neck, to his elbows and lower back. The deepest ones are bandaged, but everything seems clean.

They burn in the shower, and he has to cool the water to get through it. There’s trouble lifting his left arm from holding the wolf at bay with the rifle, new bruises seeming to pop up every time he bends for something. When he finally manages to struggle into his clothes, sweats and one of his own old sweatshirts, he's alternately cold from the lukewarm shower and sweating from the effort.

The food is cooling Chinese, some sort of bland chicken, extra hot oil on the side like he likes it. Leave it to his father to remember details just when Dean's starting to panic. He fumbles with the chopsticks, his fingers feeling thick and clumsy, raw from the other night. The food goes down tasteless, leaving him feeling heavy and listless at the table, struggling with the stupid pair of chopsticks and trying to imagine exactly what must be going through his father's head.

His neck aches, head feeling heavy, that subtle sense of _off_ that he's had since the whole thing started out in full force now.

_What the fuck are you going to do now, Dean?_

*

His father doesn't come back until hours after Dean got into bed. He couldn't sleep, but he can sense John trying to be quiet on the way in, equipment going down, the water running low in the bathroom. When he closes his eyes, he can see the movement of light and shadow through the thin skin of his lids. The room smells of oil and ash.

"You take care of the Kinney thing?"

There's a startled crash, and a sigh from his father.

"Jesus, kiddo, you scared me."

He hasn’t been called kiddo in years.

"Did you?"

He doesn't feel like turning around.

"Yeah, just a salt and burn."

By the time he falls asleep, the windows are already gray with dawn, and it seems like only moments before he's shaken awake. His father's sitting on his own bed, their bags arranged around him, all packed. He has the comfortable look of someone who's been in the same position for awhile, face bearing the edgy, stretched expression of a man who's had his coffee.

Hands resting on his knees, something soft and worried in his eyes, it reminds Dean of when he used to lie awake, watching his father watch Sammy sleep.

"Morning already?" He slurs the words a little in spite of himself.

He's wordlessly handed a cup of coffee.

His father smiles dryly as he takes the first gulp, eyes sliding closed in bliss.

"Try almost noon, kiddo."

Dean's feeling much better, and they're on the road within the half hour, following a report of a haunted house a state over. 

It feels familiar, black road striping by beneath them, tapping his fingers to the music in the tape deck, his baby purring beneath him. He can almost believe things are going back to normal. A couple more weeks, then they could act like nothing happened at all. Except his father starts treating him like glass, pulling chairs out, opening doors, glaring at anyone who so much as glances at Dean for more than two seconds. They never touched all that much before, or maybe Dean just never noticed, but now his skin’s over sensitive, cataloguing every solicitous brush against his jaw, his arm, the heat of a heavy hand helping him out of the car, familiar body welcoming his head onto a broad shoulder when he got tired.

It’s nothing short of bizarre, and he can’t force himself to relax. The third time John nearly gives a stuttering, pimply convenience store clerk a hernia from his fuck-you look alone, Dean finally snaps.

"What gives? This is creeping me out, ok? I'm _fine_ , just a couple bruises and scrapes."

And it's true – the pain medication helped. His head probably took the worst of it, but even that bandage is off. The older bruises on his face have already faded to a sickly yellow. The newer ones are nothing he hasn't dealt with before.

His father sighs, puts his hands on the wheel.

"God, Dean, if you could look at yourself."

He stares out the window at the road streaking past, jaw locked.

"Dad – "

"Dean, you're gonna get yourself killed."

He rolls his eyes, "Not with you around apparently."

There's the weight of his father's gaze, a thick pressure even while Dean looks away.

"You're right, not with me around."

When Dean looks up, it's to dark eyes that seem to burn almost feverishly. He has to smile then, because the air is alien between them.

He'd never demanded his father's attention. When he was young, maybe he'd wanted it, but he never needed it. The lack of attention, the nod of approval, that meant that Dean was doing well, that they were doing well. He always imagined John’s secret smile when the broad back was turned to him, trusting him, and that filled him with pride, _I can do this_. Attention usually meant a dressing down.

He hardly remembers things from before his mother died, and then there had always been Sammy, who seemed to get into trouble as easily as breathing. It wasn’t easy for either of them when Sam left. His father would be gone for longer and longer stretches, coming back after days stinking of alcohol and sometimes women. Dean couldn’t exactly blame; he did the same. The space between them seemed to yawn and stretch and snap closed at the worst moments, like the two of them were men who wandered with their eyes in their palms, reeling and stretching to see what was ahead.

No focus, just the old soldierly camaraderie, bland and impersonal, to fall back on.

Except now that seems closed to them too, this elephant between them. Dean feels stripped raw, utterly, stupidly exposed and not himself.

 

*

Eventually his father settles, and they continue on their next hunt, Dean no longer shut in the hotel room. He’s still sore, but his face looks much better, less wayward attention attracted, and he makes sure to stretch himself morning and evening. The reports sounded sketchy at best, but they were both raring for something to do, and a hundred miles seemed like only a bare sum next to the endless, agonizing hours of awkward greetings and his father’s strange gentleness. 

He slides a hand between his legs at night, teasing himself to slickness, thinking about the sweatshirts he’s spent the last few days bundled in, the feeling that he could barely step outside without John laying down his coat in the mud. Another hapless trucker falls victim to what had to be the grossest display of overprotective fatherhood since whatever ancient loony killed his daughter to protect her virtue. And Dean is fairly sure this one really didn’t mean anything beyond being polite. 

He’s in a position to sniff out these things. 

His mouth is dry because he can’t taste anything for all the cotton his father’s got him wrapped in, so he messes up his hair until he looks just fucked, practices a few poses in the mirror that look more and more stupid the more he tries, finally settling for the natural blankness that comes easily to him these days.

He’s seen worse.

He wears low cut jeans to the Weber house, examines them carefully in the mirror before he leaves the room. They slide darkly across his hips, slanting down to cradle the center of his body. When he turns, he can see how they cup his ass, the narrow space between his legs. The patch of tanned skin that winks between shirt and jeans seems to burn his father when he looks, and Dean can learn to like that, something beyond their cocoon of strange concern and stifled conversation. 

The cop standing guard beyond the crime scene tape likes it too, his eyes drifting to the dip between Dean's breasts, the lift of his thighs. Dean moves himself in front so John can't take control, smiles, looks straight, his body canted open.

It's never been about the badge winking from his hand – this game is won with confidence. 

Dean can do confident. 

He hardly remembers a word that comes out of his mouth, except that it's all this side of provocative, numb on his tongue, his father's gaze burning into him from behind. He's almost sure the Weber house is just another haunting, but part of him is singing for something more tangible, something he can tear his hands into. The shotgun sits more heavily in his grip when they finally get through the front gate, oily and bristling in his hands. He's tested the recoil, the heft in his new body, earned the bruises. The wolf seems like it was years ago when he tries hard. He exchanges a silent nod with his father, the two of them cutting in different directions as soon as they finish the basic canvas.

No more than a few minutes pass before the shadow lurches from the corner, sending his body flicking, bending forward on instinct until he's clear. There's an almost hit, and she darts to the side, lighter now, quicker, and lands the first punch, knuckles scraping bone.

The crack tremors through her, teeth seeming to shake in her gums, limbs thrumming. She's glad for it, moves with it. Leg here, arm there, dodging back and throwing herself forward, claws out. 

The light throws itself on smooth looking skin, and it yields beneath her blows. The gun's forgotten somewhere in the corner, a sharp clatter that might have startled him in the past and there's copper in her mouth, but she needs this, tightens for it.

The pure soaring heat of the connection and the wrench of each blow wets her tongue, moves her blood. She's flying - 

She – 

"Dean! _Dean._ "

She nails the second attacker under the jaw and immediately surges in as he winces, snapping out a leg between his legs. She can tell he’s hesitating, the satisfaction hot in her blood at that, and she ducks under his wild swing, rips her wrist out of his loosened grip when he tries.

She can smell him, musk and darkness and danger, tries to find the delicate point on his face, near the nose, where she can strike, taste blood, worship, sacrifice, but she’s too slow, falling even as she realizes it, a hard hit, but not a deadly one.

His head rings. 

First he sees the blood on his hands, some of it caking brown already against his raw knuckles, then a dazed kaleidoscope of his father's face coming closer, before the breath's knocked out of him and he's on his back, the ceiling swimming hazily into view. 

"Dean?”

The voice doesn’t sound nearly as sure of itself as he’s used to. 

"Dad?" 

Something had attacked, he'd been fighting, _winning_ , and then his father's voice. He tries to sit up, regain his balance, but it’s difficult. His muscles feel loose and thick on his frame, bone bruises making their presence known as he moves, his breasts aching, knuckles scraped and bleeding when he looks down. Then his father’s hand is on his cheek, rough and familiar. He’s too dazed to protest or jerk back.

John looks at his face clearly, and Dean is shocked to see that his nose is bleeding, a raw bruise ripening from his jaw. He holds himself gingerly, and Dean’s eyes automatically follow the weak points – groin, knee, armpit – someone who knew what they were doing. His head hurts when he thinks about it, something struggling to life, but he can only see the sketch of it, remember some sort of flesh soft beneath his hands, and a desperate anger that feels both utterly alien and all his own.

“Dean,” his father says again, and his voice is as low as Dean’s ever heard it, a tone reserved for the death of old friends and deep disappointments. He tenses on instinct, because whatever it is can’t be good, and he’s smarting already. He feels the fingers tighten around his jaw, drawing his face up to his father. He doesn’t jerk away, but now they’re holding him there as much as they gentle, and his heart starts to beat a little faster.

“I’m sorry,” and John’s face seems to crack.

He has a vague impression of a blur to his right - _the other hand_ \- and a sparking pain that sends him over.

*

There’s a blue painted girl who draws on her body, delicate circles around her nipples and a round moon low on her belly, just above the darkness of her hair.

She’s dizzy, but there’s power in the air for her to drink.

*

His mouth tastes like he might have thrown up while he was out, sour and impossibly dry, and he can feel every single one of his bruises screaming to life, the newer ones resting brightly on top of the old ones, a whole tapestry of pain that moves with his body. He tries to blink the crust out of his eyes, raises a hand when that doesn’t seem to do, but he doesn’t get far.

Dean freezes, then localizes the pain at his wrists, his ankles. He has to squeeze his eyes shut again before he opens them to see his wrists laid hard against wooden chair arms and his legs spread and bound to the legs below them. His stomach sinking, he looks up slowly, and on the ceiling a spidering black sprawl of a pentagram like thing winks back at him, ominous.

The room is startlingly familiar, but it takes the haze of voices that start to filter in from the adjoining room for recognition to take hold –

“ – Bobby, I know what I’m doing.”

“You saw it with your own to eyes, John. Holy water didn’t do a thing.”

“Then try something _else._ ”

The demand in his father’s voice feels like home, but he can’t tell his stomach to stop fluttering. Something else? Holy water?

He tries the bonds again. They’re not cruelly tight, only laid neatly against the bones of his joints, but they hold well, no give to them no matter how hard he struggles. He accidentally sends the chair rocking a little with one of the stronger jerks and the voiced abruptly stop, to be replaced by the sound of boots scraping the wooden floors.

Bobby clears the door first, heavier than Dean remembers him, his familiar baseball cap intact though, and dark eyes just as intent. His father looks, well, beat to hell, a shiner building up right under his jaw and a black eye in the works. Absurdly, Dean wants to tell him to slap a raw steak on it.

“Dad?” he ventures, and his voice sounds hoarse to his own ears, still that alien pitch to it, and he must look pretty beat to hell too, because something shifts in Bobby’s face, and he turns away briefly, not before lobbing an accusing look at John though.

His father strides up to him, military posture as best as he can manage with what must be more bruises and strains under his clothes and leans in close until Dean can smell the sweat of the fight and his father’s own darker scent. The thing that curls sour in his stomach is alarmingly like fear.

“What are you?”

John growls out the words till they’re hardly words, and Dean imagines his hair blowing back with the force of it. All the wooziness is gone now, his head painfully clear as he gathers the pieces.

“Dad,” he begins, “Dad, I’m,” what is he supposed to say? “I’m _me._.”

“Stop,” and now his father looks half agonized, features drawn into an expression Dean doesn’t think he’s seen before, more like a theater mask than a person. “Stop. Tell me what’s going on.”

He yanks at his wrist again before remembering what it’s tied to, and he doesn’t miss the way that Bobby’s mouth tightens at that.

“I don’t know, but I’m not possessed, I’m – let me go.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Dean is shocked into silence by the ice that unravels from his father’s voice, a tone he rarely used on either of his sons, even when Sam was in the worst of his rages, driving everyone up the wall. He imagines that John might have spoken to the shtriga like this, or maybe the thing that killed his mother, and he has to recoil from that. His father leans in close, and now Dean can see that he’s holding back from trembling, even as the stubbled jaw brushes his cheek.

“Tell me.”

He’s never been afraid of his father before, because no matter how much of an asshole John Winchester could be, Dean had seen him put his own life on the line too many times not to trust him, but now he’s keenly aware of the ropes that bind him, the weakness of his own body, and how his father seems to loom, that near religious fervor shining from his eyes, the same one that held Dean in thrall when he was four and never quite let him go.

“I can’t,” he whispers. “I’m me. I’m not – “

“Don’t,” his father hisses, agonized, “don’t talk like – don’t.”

He’s sweating now. “Listen to me! I’m – “

He sees the blow coming, but there isn’t much he can do. It rocks him back, straight on the cheek, hard enough he’s sure the bone’s cracked for a second. He blinks through the pain tears, dimly hearing Bobby’s low voice grumbling in the background, and when he looks up, it’s his father’s heavy breathing, sweat glistening on his face and one arm, knuckles red, held back by Bobby’s firm grip.

The memory isn’t quite a memory, more like a calculation through his head, of that familiar face, the weak point to strike, something in his mind imagining the splinters that would go through the brain, a killing blow. He gasps, not sure if it’s the pain blurring one side of his face or the flash, but he has to look down, sag a little in his bonds.

Bobby says, “Goddamit, John, look at him. This isn’t right, you gotta – “

And Dean thinks, he is, he is. But it doesn’t feel like a possession, because he _remembers_ , the fear and the anger, the feeling of being lost, cast aside. _Blood, sacrifice._

A threat perceived and taken care of. It feels so natural, natural as the heaviness of his breasts and the new softness in his belly, hips and thighs, the tenderness between his legs, except that isn’t natural, isn’t it? His head hurts again, thinking about it, something howling wild on the wind, ravens and flesh. He can’t think he – 

His father’s hands shaking him, big hands circling his upper arms, fingers thick. 

“Where is he? Where’s my son, you bitch?”

_Here._

He realizes, it’s not quite anger in his father’s face, but something more awful, because it’s a terrible thing, to see your father cry. No tears to track on the face and throw the light, because John Winchester’s not that kind of man, but he can see it, more clearly than day, behind the dark eyes, Sam’s eyes, something broken and breaking, a mountain brought to his knees. It scares him more than anything else. 

And he remembers the low cut jeans he’d worn on purpose, now riding down uncomfortably, cutting in at his hips, rucked down by his forced seated position, and the tight shirt that stretches across his breasts. He feels out of place, frightened. He looks into his father’s dark eyes, and knows they see nothing of his son in his own. 

“Stop, _please._ ”

She’s scared, like with the other man and the wolf, hungry for the richness of worship too, but blood isn’t what she needs either.

She wants her father, father of fathers, longs for her mother. Heavy breasts, she thinks, or just golden hair? The whisper of angels. She can’t be sure. It hurts, she –

“ _John._ ”

He jerks up at the sound of Bobby’s voice.

It gentles, “John, you have to let him go. Let him go.”

Him, yes, him, though he feels anything but now, and his father’s warmth deserts him, moves back, the wave of anger receding to the back of the room. There’s something pushing at his lips, and he looks up blearily at Bobby, his face set in a careful smile.

“Drink this for me, Dean? Ok, just drink this.”

And he does. It’s cool, but not sweet, like water that’s sat too long in the open. He’s thirsty though, his lips cracked, so he gulps it.

“See, John? Nothing.”

“You don’t get it, Bobby, she almost _killed_ a man. She almost killed _me._ So she isn’t a Christian demon. She must be – “

“What?”

He can’t help the alarm that floods his voice. They both turn to him, his father’s face bruised and open, and then he knows. Not a memory, just a clear knowledge in his head, but he can’t make it unnatural. Blood is power, to fuel and to –

But that’s not quite him either. He tries to turn his neck, but it sends a line of nausea through so sharp he almost moans. There’s something roiling in his stomach, and his head’s spinning again. He hunches over a little, but that just makes it worse.

“Mr. Singer,” he manages to rasp, falling back on hold habits. “I – “

It comes up alarmingly fast, sudden sharp sour tang in his tongue and then his face is red with the exertion, skin stretched, arms strained in their position. He can’t look up, just sort of glares miserably down, trying to ignore the smell. He swallows gingerly, but that’s a mistake, because the last traces of it going down again almost send him into another fit. There’s a hand against his cheek, and he almost flinches back, catches himself in time to just sit. He can’t seem to move his head without pain or more nausea, nothing to do except stare straight ahead and try to focus.

The water’s sweeter this time when Bobby presses it to his lips, or maybe it just tastes so amazingly clear after the taste of his own vomit.

“ – God’s sake, John, look at him.”

Hands at his wrists and his ankles, as fingers brush his skin in their hurry to undo the knots. He can’t even move his arms from the rests when they’re free, his head still ringing and his whole body a little numb. His father’s smell is achingly familiar when it wraps around him, and he sinks himself in it, his head turned inward even as he feels arms go under his knees and across his back.

He takes in a breath so deep he thinks he’s going to faint, his father’s heartbeat right there, his body twisted into something else entirely. He remembers the hurt in John’s face, trying to find his son, his remaining son, in Dean’s eyes, and all he can think is _Sam._

*

Dean wakes up in a pool of moonlight, alone.

It’s a small room, just the one window spilling the night air in, and the blankets are scratchy. His head still hurts, but the worst of the nausea is gone. He can focus when he looks. Someone has taken the time to shuck off his jeans, and he can’t even find the energy to blush, just roots around the room until he finds them over the chair, and his duffle in the corner. Everything’s been neatly packed, military edges and a sort of fanatic neatness that John didn’t pass on to his sons except when Dean was feeling panicky. The new clothes, the ones made to fit his altered body, are laid out on top.

In his head, he can see his father bent over the clothes, his broad hands working methodically. He used to tell Dean about the jungle, the Corps, bumming cigarettes and keeping his kit there, used to ruffle his hair and laugh about how they had it lucky, even on the move. Dean loved those stories, because they leavened some of the heaviness in his father’s eyes.

He thinks now that maybe it was loneliness.

He has some of his own cash left over, and he palms it quickly, throws one of his old jackets over himself. The tan one was ruined. He swims in it, but he didn’t think to buy a new one before, and it’s already late. When he steps out into the main hall, he wanders which one of the rooms his father’s in, and the thought makes him sick with things he can’t name.

Bobby’s got a whole junkyard yawning outside, comforting metal and dirt for Dean to pick through. He hates cheaping Bobby like that, but he’ll be back, he figures, and he’ll more than make up for it. Except it’s Bobby’s voice that whispers at him from the darkness, and he turns, a little surprised, guilty maybe, the strap of the duffle digging into his shoulder even through the thickness of his old coat.

“Jesus, look at you,” Bobby says, and his eyes are only kind.

Dean fights the urge to shrug, hunch a little.

“I need a car,” it comes out too brusque, and he flushes in the darkness. “I mean, can I – “

The metal flashes quickly in the air, but he catches them sure enough.

“Is he, is he – all right?” he sounds very young, and now more than ever, he realizes he doesn’t like to hear himself speak. Painful reminders. Dean was always good at avoiding those.

Bobby ducks his head. “Hell, Dean, no one knew it would turn out like this. Your daddy didn’t – “ he looks into Dean’s eyes, and seems to sigh, “he’s fine. Just a bit banged up. You look worse.”

Dean shrugs. “Tell him I just need some space, ok? I don’t wanna,” he stops himself, waits for the next words to come, but they seem to choke in his mouth.

Bobby’s a man who understands silence, and he just nods.

“I will, Dean.” He looks to the side, spits. “You take care of yourself, you hear?”

And he looks at Dean, not his breasts or his hips, hidden as they are, just his face.

He’s absurdly grateful for that.

*

Dean never got sick of driving.

His father always said he would, a week after he got his license, told him the roads would get to him, the thrill gone, and he’d be shoving it on Sammy when the time came and back to his old dad when before that. But Dean liked it, the road, not just his cars, though the Impala purred beautifully for him always. Dirty, little places of America, roadside stops and hidden smiles. He’s a Midwestern boy, which seems to mean less and less these days, but he likes picking out the regions, the moment of strange connection over a cup of coffee.

It was strange at first, without Sam sulking somewhere, or telling a joke with one of his rarer and rarer brilliant smiles, and sometimes with his father, a brooding comfort beside him, his own jokes all the better because they were so unexpected, and Dean could only gape at him open mouthed, the laughter still waiting to catch up.

But there’s something to the silence too, now more than ever. 

He likes the long stretches of road, where a lifted finger and a smile feels like a welcoming meal.

Dakota yawns empty before him, dry with a wide blue sky. 

Don’t like this, don’t like this land, part of him seems to whisper, but it’s just in his blood, nothing to worry about. He buys makeup to cover up the bruises. It shines awkward and weirdly orange on his face, but it passes from a distance. When he runs out of cash, he pulls over at the first bar, stripping the thick comfort of the jacket away, so he’s left with just the amulet, a tight tank, and those low jeans. The bartender looks at him with a smile when he walks in.

There’s a soft little piece by the bar, cherry lips and small round breasts, thin but not the tight, boyish muscle he sees sometimes, a pale comfort of skin. Her shirt is flowy rather than skintight, cinched beneath the curve of her breasts, but he can imagine a little curve of belly above the waist, neat dark hair beneath her fly. He has to work for this conversation, because Dean always relied on his smile and his height before, but she opens up easily enough, a nice girl, headed to Sioux Falls to meet her cousin, and what lipstick was Dean wearing, it looked so nice!

He follows along blithely, watches how her attention’s drawn to a tall, broad shouldered guy in the corner of the room. His back turned, he could be Dean, the old Dean, and thinking about it makes his head ache more. 

The guy keeps shooting glances over at the two of them, looks to be on his third or fourth beer.

Dean can tell the girl’s already plenty sloshed. He marvels at how much more easily he can touch and hug her, brush her cheek with a kiss as the alcohol starts flowing. She takes his hand in her small one, slipping him off the stool, and he likes the height he’s got on her, realizes he missed it these past weeks.

“Dance with me, c’mon.”

Her short, dark hair fluffs around her cheeks, red from the beer, and she twirls so the ends of her shirt go flying out. He laughs, moves with her, into his customary shuffle.

She wrinkles her nose – adorable – all, what are you _doing_?

And her little hands are on his hips, resting there, drawing him closer, and she does this obscene wiggle against him, all sweet, sweaty skin and soft hair brushing his face, until they’re moving in tandem, and he starts to get it, how to snap his hips right and move along his curves until they’re one. He can imagine how hot they look, wound together. If he tries, maybe there’s the twitch of his phantom dick, but the thought just makes him laugh. 

“C’mon,” she repeats, and moves in. He can smell her girly perfume, something flowery, and dips his head in for the kiss. Her lips are soft, and she moans a little, surprised, when he slicks his tongue between her lips, cupping her cheeks.

It’s good for a second, not too wet, her breathy little sounds turning him on, but then she pulls away, and confused, he follows her gaze, back to the guy.

He tries for another kiss, and she darts her head back.

“C’mon,” it’s a drawl with her, come awwwn, “he’s already looking. What are you, a dyke?”

He’s suddenly angry, fed up with her stupid perfume and her floaty shirt, too embarrassed to say something stupid or start a fight. He imagines going up to the guy, taking him from her, flirting like he’s learned a little, and racking the bastard for all he’s worth at pool, so he can win both their annoyed glances.

It tastes good in his head, the thought, but he doesn’t. He just grabs his jacket and leaves.

“Hey,” says the girl from behind him, not quite steady on her feet, “hey. Come _awwn._ ”

He feels sick when he drives, beer still buzzing through him.

*

California doesn’t feel as far away this time. He hums and doesn’t stop to eat, the motel where he showered quickly barely a memory now, just a motion of wetness and limbs, and his fingers between his legs, blocked faces swimming in his head.

He’s practically on the Embarcadero before he realizes he doesn’t even know what dorm he’s looking for, but his hands on the wheel are already searching for that empty space, even if his head’s still wandering. 

He asks around, dials the local directory, and then the school office.

“I’m his sister,” it comes easily. “Yeah, just dropping off a few things.”

The secretary calls him ma’am, still bizarre to his ears, and rattles off the directions.

He guesses the palm trees should maybe weird him out a little, but the campus just flies by, his stomach starting to growl at last.

The last few steps are the hardest, expecting to see him at any moment. Then he’s waiting in the hallway, for hours it seems, playing with cards, while people walk by and stare, asking questions he doesn’t answer.

It’s the shadow, and later Dean will wonder how the fuck he recognized a shadow, except now it’s implicit, cradling him in its darkness. He looks up, face relaxed for the first time in a long time, his hands numb.

“Sam?”

*

He gives Sam credit. It doesn’t take him long to figure it out, and he’s never been able to hide much with his face, not like their father.

The familiar eyes widen almost comically, mouth opening to say something, but he has to close it and open it again before anything comes out.

“ _Dean_?”

The new deepness to his voice shocks Dean out of his crouch. He scrambles to his feet, and Sam still goes up and up, beyond Dean’s head, so he has to step back to look in his face, where the boy still is, all painful sharp angles.

“Yeah.”

And he’s suddenly so tired he can barely keep his eyes open. He just wants to drop, but not as much as he wants to drink in Sam. All the old anger slides out of him like so much water, because his brother’s _here_ and whole, taller and taller like he’ll never stop, the familiar bones of his face, and the unfamiliar breadth of his shoulders.

He tries to grin, “Still got that pimple thing going on, Sammy? _Attractive._ ”

Sam seems entranced by his voice, so different now, Dean realizes, but he recovers, sort of ducks his head a little. It has the effect of making his shoulders seem only broader, incongruous with his brother’s narrow eyes and his thin, smiling mouth.

“Your _hair_ ,” he croaks, and he has to laugh. It’s so far from John’s old military high and tights they’d both suffered through as children, flopping this way and that, across Sam’s eyes and his cheeks, and God, were those _sideburns_?

He’s got no shame left, just weariness, so he falls into the hug. It smells like his father.

*

Sam lets him veer between tearing into the crappy microwave meal and explaining what happened in sketchy pieces, but his brows are furrowed, and Dean can practically see the cogs turning.

He looks at Dean with eyes that are unbearably soft, lifts one hand, and Dean can see this one coming, to touch his cheek, except he doesn’t quite make it, just hovers there.

“He do that to you?”

It sounds like a line from a crappy Lifetime movie, not that Dean would admit to watching them, even with boobs. She Stood Alone, the Dean Winchester Story.

There’s an old anger in Sam’s voice, and Dean knows part of this isn’t about him, will never be about him, but the old sides of the coin, push and pull, Sam and their father, stoppable like the tide is stoppable.

“Sam, don’t.”

Except he feels it now too, remembers sympathizing, railing against John’s overprotective streak, cringing from his violence, these strange extremes Dean thought maybe didn’t exist, not for him anyway.

He was always on an even keel with his father, always until now.

There are a million things they could be talking about, but Sam just lets Dean eat until the plasticky chicken actually starts to taste like the artificial crap it is, and the Coke is all gone in his stomach. He's half nauseated, too warm and still in the room, old aches and new soreness making themselves known now that he's taking a breath, relaxing for the first time.

He feels full, elated. My brother, he thinks, and is horrified to discover there are _tears_ in his eyes. His throat closes up around the food, and he can’t say anything for a minute, whatever it is tearing at him like wolves, and Sam, Sam, an impossible thing, there beside him. Dean would be lying if he said he hadn't thought about this, written the whole thing in his head a few hundred times over, during lulls and during hunts, fingers still reaching to buy Sam his stupid sodas, his protein bars, the fullness of the empty space hitting him every time. 

He blinks quickly, looks around the room, at all the things he doesn’t recognize, emo posters and new books, like pages off a catalogue but dearly used, lived in, full of his brother. There’s a life here. Sam sees, but doesn’t say anything.

“Hormones,” Dean grinds out, and dares him to open his mouth.

There’s a comfortable silence, where they just take their time looking. No hurry, says Dean’s head, no hurry, alien world.

That night, Sam gestures, embarrassed, at his twin bed, school issued, with a diamond hard mattress.

Dean goggles at it, “Do your feet hang off the end?”

The painful _yes_ is apparent in Sam’s eyes, and he can only laugh.

“I’ll sleep on the floor,” Sam says immediately, and Dean rolls his eyes.

“I’m not actually a chick you know, Sammy.”

Sam flinches a little at though, and Dean can’t talk for a second.

“I’m not,” he says, more angrily. “I’m your _brother_ and I don’t need to be babied goddamit, just – _ow_ , motherfucker.”

Sam draws his hand back slowly, from where he poked the tender place below Dean’s ribs, a healing bruise.

“It’s not ‘cause you’re a girl,” he says quietly, looking at Dean’s cheek, the shiner he can feel even when he talks. His father doesn’t hold back when he’s angry. “Christ, Dean, you should look at yourself. My hall mates, they -”

He remembers Bobby’s look too, and is suddenly determined to avoid mirrors.

“Sleep in the bed, Dean,” it’s a quiet order, reminds him of his father at his most charming, when he needed something, but there’s something open and sincere in Sam’s face that he can’t quite associate with John.

As soon as he sinks into the mattress, a little softer with Sam’s blankets piled around it, he knows he’s not getting up again. The pillows feel like heaven beneath his neck, and he seems to relax for the first time in a long time.

“Sam,” he says, and he doesn’t need to say more, because even when they fought, they didn’t always need to talk.

Sam curls in with him gingerly, careful with his bruises.

It’s a tight fit, and for once, Dean is glad for his new size, and rests his chin over Sam’s heart, steady beat of it. There’s warm skin all around him and the smell of cheap deodorant. The relief in him is so strong he thinks he might shake, but Sam saves him from that. He whispers everything he needs to say into Dean’s hair, soft and steady. His classes, moving into the dorm, how he’d written letters and thrown them away, how he was actually terrified the first day here, but he loved it, Dean, he loved it and people _liked_ him and he was taking this Ethics class.

Dean falls asleep to the sound of his brother musing through different meal plans that all sound equally horrific.

*

The sunlight wakes him up, and looking at it, he realizes it must almost be noon. He stretches out his arm instinctively, but he can tell Sam’s gone before he even opens his eyes.

There’s a half drained bottle of water and two Aspirin laid neatly on the dresser by the bed, and a note, in Sam’s spiky drawl.

_@ class. Breakfast in the fridge._

He finds orange juice and a Hot Pocket in the mini fridge, feeling embarrassingly like a one night stand.

The kitchen’s down the hall, so he slips into his jeans and one of Sam’s smaller T-shirts, taking the time to find his shoes after assessing the state of the hallway.

There’s a mirror on the back of Sam’s door.

“Oh, Jesus.”

He does look terrible, face less a little less swollen, but the blackened bruise from Bobby’s sitting bright on top of everything else. His wrists are a little raw from the ropes, though the yellowing stripes from the werewolf and the gun look worse. He settles for ruffling his hair into some semblance of a deliberate mess, and trying to look casual while going toward the kitchen.

There’s a kid already in there, bright blond hair and a Polo shirt. Dean hates him on sight.

When he smiles though, it seems pretty guileless, and at least the Polo’s a reasonable navy instead of lime or pink or something. He seems to be frying eggs, and Dean’s stomach gives an involuntary growl at the hiss and crackle of yolk and the good, greasy smell. The kid laughs, stretching out a hand.

“I’m Taylor.”

Pretty douchey name, but Dean tells himself to be reasonable. What he really wants is some coffee.

He smiles in return, mind scrambling for the right combination of words.

“Jess,” he remembers. “I’m Jess.”

There’s lemon sunlight streaming in through the window, and he can almost forget how crappy the rest of the lounge looks, old couches and battered walls.

Taylor nods, not taking his eyes off the eggs.

“You one of Sam’s friends?’

Dean takes a swig of his orange juice. “Yeah, how’d you know?”

He gets a wry grin in return. “We all saw you in the hallway yesterday.” His voice drops a little. “You…ok?”

Oh Christ. Yesterday seems like last year in the brightness of the morning. There’s so much unreasonable happiness welling up in him he can hardly remember the state he was in. Dean barely stops himself from rolling his eyes, his mind already working. This is easy, imagining a different life for people, garnishing the truth a little. He’s back in his game.

“Yeah, looks pretty, doesn’t it? Got mugged on my way here.”

“No shit? In Frisco?”

Jesus, _Frisco._

“Yeah, around,” Dean says vaguely, taking another gulp of orange juice. It’s pretty fresh for all the plastic.

The microwave dings, and he bounces the Hot Pocket from hand to hand till it doesn’t burn, eyes closing on the first bite of cheese and salty ham.

“Hey, you want some eggs? I got more.”

Taylor gestures to the open carton still on the counter, and Dean’s stomach growls.

“Sure,” he says easily.

*

“Hi, _Jess._ ”

Dean’s missed Sam’s twisted up face so much in the midst of all the concern that he just laughs

“You wanna explain why _Taylor_ knows about The Apple Thing?”

Sam’s like a child with his labels, and Dean can only smile fondly at that.

“He’s a nice kid,” Dean chews happily on the jerky he’d gotten. Spicy. “Mighta told him a few things.”

“You practically showed him baby pictures, Dean!”

Sam’s voice wails up, and he has to stifle another giggle.

“Too bad I don’t have ‘em, huh?”

He laughs again, so easily now, when Sam tackles him, throwing them both onto the bed, the jerky scattering. It’s uncomplicated, his brother warm against him. 

“Relax, Sammy, I just made up a few things. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Sister hadn’t seemed right when Taylor asked, so he invented Jess’ story, Sam’s childhood friend from Kansas. Yeah, they had some good times together. Hey, did Sammy ever tell you about the time he - ?

Sam takes him out to dinner, a little tacqueria on the edge of campus. He moans at the first bite of burrito, the hot meat amazing in his mouth, salsa just spicy enough.

When he looks up, Sam is staring with a sort of stunned look in his eyes.

“What?” says Dean, his mouth full, the sauce dribbling down his chin. He wipes it off with a sleeve.

“Nothing,” Sam says quickly, dipping his head back to his own taco salad, and Jesus, a _salad._ Only Sammy would pervert a perfectly good fast food and turn it inside out into the South Beach Diet.

He tells Sam about the hunts they’ve been on, the _yuwipi_ they interrupted in South Dakota a year ago, a succubus at Disney World. Sam raises his eyebrows at that one.

“Yeah,” says Dean, chewing. “Don’t ask.”

He exaggerates the details about the Harpy hunt, and Sam’s bright eyes tell him he knows, and doesn’t care. It’s easy here in California, where even the winter sunshine warms him through, and even the rain seems like a request rather than a lashing demand. Sam looks so relaxed, in his own element, tall and assured. He waves to random people on the path. The girls smile and simper for him. Walking with his Oxford shirts and books under his arms, he grins like a TV college student, and Dean can’t help but smile for him.

“You gonna tell me what really happened?”

His face is serious, always serious when it’s about their father.

Dean sighs, his own grin dropping. He lurches and skids, editing as he goes, and Sam knows this too, less forgiving this time than with the Harpies, but he lets Dean continue.

“ – all be over in a few weeks,” he finishes.

He knows, has been watching the clear, California sky, waiting for the half moon to return. It seems like years ago.

Sam gestures at his face, his arms. “And these?”

His voice almost shakes.

“Balance is off,” Dean says simply. “I over estimated myself.”

“Then why aren’t you with him?”

Sam almost sounds hurt, as if he were a second choice, and Dean can’t even begin to explain, because the question burns his eyes, makes his head ache anew. The thought of John sets his head thundering. Maybe Sam’s used to it, but Dean can’t handle this fight, not like this, not now.

“Sam,” he says.

And Sam backs him up into the wall, a breaking gentleness in his eyes, their father in his eyes.

Dean swallows.

_Please don’t make me tell you._

He mumbles, “I’m gonna go back. I just needed a break.”

A break, it sounds so simple.

And Sam shakes his head at that, like a young bull, getting ready to gore Dean’s feeble excuses.

“You could, Dean, you could stay.” He sounds painfully hopeful, face suddenly young again. “I’m a junior already. I was thinking about getting an apartment next year, move out to the city after I graduate maybe, or stay here, you like it here right?”

“Yeah,” it’s hard to say, but it’s no lie. He likes the sunshine, seeing Sam happy and relaxed. Hell, he’s even ok with the kids now, not a bad bunch, and plenty of good pot, even if Sam only gets hilarious frowns on his face at the mention of it.

“Then stay.”

It sounds familiar. _Come away with me._ A boy’s fantasy, hand outstretched. 

“Sam,” begins, “I can’t – “

Then Sam’s lips are on his, broad hands on either side of his head, body pressing him comfortably against the narrow wall of his room.

Sam leans back, slowly, unhurried, just looks at him quietly, something unbelievably calm and adult in his eyes.

Man, whispers something in his head. Blood.

“Stay,” he says again, half a command.

Dean falls into the second kiss, remembering the mirror and his hands between his legs, Tom, the girl in the bar, his own confusion.

His brother’s shoulders are hard against him, his lips soft like Dean thought they might be years ago. He’s lifted up easily, broad hands around his waist, circling his thighs, and his legs go naturally around Sam, who can’t stop touching him, long, boy fingers sliding under Dean’s shirt. He shivers at how cold they are, and Sam mumbles an apology, but they’re already on the bed, his weight in the sheets. Words seem ridiculous when Sam’s baring himself before him, broad shoulders, a narrowness around the collarbone reminding Dean that this is his _brother_ , a kid, and – 

\- they're pressed against the wall for the lack of space, and Sam covers him easily. He’s blinded for a moment as the T-shirt goes over his head, his breasts ripe and exposed in the cool of the room, his nipples hard, something fluttering low in his belly, hot.

“Dean,” so low it’s barely a word.

He has to press himself further into the mattress, nails scraping is palms, cheek swallowed by the rucked up sheet. 

Then Sam doesn't speak, just _moves_. 

Dean's shaken into the sheets beneath him, bouncing, dragging. He can feel the press of long fingers against one hip, not steady, not even close, but scrabbling, grasping. It almost tickles except he's swallowed by the rough stroke of streaking pain inside him, little girl body stretched too wide, his legs trying to spread themselves helplessly, but he can't open himself anymore. 

Sam's damp face snuffles into his hair, one arm, lean and corded now like it'd never been, slipping under Dean to drag him up into the next thrust, until his belly aches, the gaping tenderness. There's a squeeze, and the elbow's jamming him in the upper ribs, awkward, sweat slick flesh dragging as they move. Dean chokes out a gasp into the pillow when Sam presses up against the softer underside of his breasts, holding and pushing and shivering forward like the aching soft boy noise has shattered against Dean's back. 

He moans, doesn't even feel the slickness between his thighs until Sam's a warm, heavy weight against his back, spent, still shaking. Dean's almost afraid to turn his head, label it anger, but then hard fingers are pushing at him, slick from Sam's own come, tracing his fuck swollen entrance before jacking inside with a fierceness that has Dean jerking his tired body from the bed. 

"Sam," he says. "Sam." But it's not really a word, his brain fused to the amazing hurt between his legs, just a sound, startled from his lips, his mouth too dry and heavy to do anything else. 

Sam screws him, digs against the trembling muscle with too long fingers, until Dean can feel a sharp knuckle dragging against his clit, shivers into it, eyes squeezed closed. He squirms, not away, but Sam's other hand holds him there, steadying, almost comforting, as the warmth sparks outward.

He turns over when he can, utterly open, the shame stricken out of him, and Sam, he's leaning up on one elbow, face shuttered like when he was much younger, lips pursed and narrow eyes hidden, a secret thing at the corner of his mouth. 

Dean doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing, just stares. 

Then Sam runs one hand through the damp spikes of his hair, palm too large, fingers still damp with Dean's scent. He waits for something angry to come from his mouth, proprietary, an outcry against what they've just done, but there's nothing, just Sam's narrow face and broad hands, red skin and long cock between them. Dean dreams.

*

Worship me, she says, hands rounding over her belly.

Her breasts are swollen, a child at her feet.

There’s the earth, and there’s the raven, no time for children or war.

*

“You can touch them you know,” he sounds assured to himself, but Sam’s silent for a moment.

“Dean, God,” he says finally, “you don’t know what you look like.”

He traces the pattern of freckles over one naked shoulder, lets his hand drift down to Dean’s belly, the new softness of it, then further down, between his legs, until Dean’s arching again.

Sam bends his head to his throat, suckling there, and then to his breasts, his other hand coming up to cup one, his mouth wet and teeth sharp over the other.

Dean tries to hold still, but it’s, hard, because Sam’s worshiping him, with spit instead of blood, broad hands. The word comes from nowhere, and it’s too late to wonder, because they’re rolled down again, Sam’s cock hard against his thigh.

It’s long, curving, pressed hot between them, and he touches it carefully, then rougher, his fingers closing against it, and Sam’s own fingers jack inside him. They both moan.

The rhythm is easy to fall into, his knuckles brushing Sam’s belly as they move.

Sam spills first, warm over his fingers, and then he comes shivering with a groan, gripping long fingers inside him, Sam’s tongue hot around his nipple.

Broad hands come around his shoulders, smelling of Dean and the bitterness of Sam's own come. He doesn’t lift his head from Dean’s breast, dark hair brushing his jaw, and body arched, suddenly awkward and boyish.

“Please,” he says, breath damp on Dean’s skin, _taptap_ into the curve of his breast, over his own heart. “Don’t leave.”

Dean swallows, his mouth dry. 

*

His dreams are his own, he thinks.

His father’s back is turned, shoulders shaking.

*

He wakes up, Sam still tangled with him, their skin damp with sweat and other things. He gasps when he moves, Sam’s cock still limp inside him. It slicks out as he jerks his hips, a deep tenderness inside, wet on his thighs.

He feels content.

The curve of Sam’s neck makes his chest hurt, soft hairs wisping around the naked pale skin, glowing in the light. Dean kisses it, gentle.

“Sam,” he says, “Sam.”

Sam startles him with an arm snaking around his waist. He mumbles something that sounds like sleep.

“I have to go,” he tugs, but Sam’s curled around him like leech, warm puppy pile of limbs and tanned skin. “ _Sam._ ”

He can think only of his father, face broken, what a terrible thing it was to see the tears lurking in the back of his eyes, and now both his sons gone. His own selfishness strikes him like a knife, and he can’t think for a moment, the sunshine less bright now. 

He must hate California, Dean thinks dimly, biting his lips.

He’s almost used to everything now, fitting tight against Sam’s angles and boy scars, but it’ll be gone soon. He’ll be gone soon.

*

Sam didn’t understand, but he rarely did, and Dean couldn’t look him in the face before he left.

He drives because he can’t think. It takes him a week, and it’s a week he needs.

It happens as quietly as the first one was painful, in his sleep, and suddenly his jeans are digging into his skin in the morning. He barely gets them off, and sighs at the first touch of his old boxers. He touches his jaw, shocking rasp of stubble there, and his chest, flat, his thighs, powerful again, and his cock, limp and pale between his legs, dark hair unruly above it. He remembers Sam, and it stirs.

He can still feel the phantom ache somewhere between his legs though, remember the slip slide of hard flesh and come between them. It’s a place that doesn’t exist anymore, except maybe in his head, but it still hurts.

His father presses the keys into his palm, and hugs him, face shocky and old. There are wrinkles Dean feels like he’s never seen before, worming themselves around his dark eyes, nesting in curves at his mouth unsmiling.

“She’s yours, Dean.”

The Impala. Bobby’s borrowed car back in its home. 

She grins at him, low and dark, a sweet thing, but he can’t even find it in his head to be happy, because his father won’t look at him.

“Maybe,” John says, voice low, lower than Sam is tall, and Sam, Sam, Dean can’t think now. “Maybe we should split up for a bit.”

Dean feels his face tighten.

“Maybe,” he says, his chest so tight he thinks he’s going to die.

The last hug, head to head, is a tough thing, their hands grasping each other’s backs. He turns his head to scrape the rasp of John’s stubble, and the sound shakes him.

Dean has never wanted to let go. 

*

He dreams, and they’re curiously lonely now.

His father cocks a gun, but his fingers never seem to touch the trigger.

Sam dances with a girl named Jess, while she dances with fire.

*


End file.
